My most incendiary mixtape to date has many people divided. Are cops a two-tier force or are they a service?
Surely those waffling on about two tier policing remember decade after decade of reading about young Black men from over policed communities dying after police interactions, the list appears endless: Jermaine Baker, Azelle Rodney, Kevin Clarke, Darren Cumberbatch, Shaun Rigg, Mark Duggan and – more recently – Oladeji Omishore and Chris Kaba. When people speak of two tier policing they need to understand the trauma they are unlocking in other communities as this flippant use of something the Black community know all too well is deeply jarring.
Could these same people also have failed to notice the alarming numbers of traumatic child strip searches, the disproportionate numbers relating to Black children. Child Q being a prominent incident. The disproportionate attention paid to our young adults highlights that we are constantly violated as a community and that ongoing violation is underpinned by two tier policing and institutional racism.
According to the Guardian, the capital’s police force has identified that 78% of people currently detained under section 136 of the Mental Health Act go on to be discharged home following assessment, suggesting mental health is being over-policed in London.
Currently, as a Black man in a mental health crisis, you are – according to the charity Mind – far more likely to be restrained by the cops and sectioned. Taser use is eight times higher for Black people than it is for our white counterparts. We are eight times more likely to be stopped and searched.
Sadly, we are also seven times more likely to be killed following restraint by police too. When people have the temerity to trot out this phrase they should be mindful when it cascades from their dusty lips, that not only do they besmirch the real struggles experienced by communities recently under siege by far-right rioters across the country. They also reveal something to us about themselves.
Anyway, enjoy my latest mixtape